Bud’s Blog: Oakland City Council keeps pushing the limits

 Bud's Blog, Cultivation, Video
Feb 082011
 

I wish I could tell you more about what’s happening in Oakland, but sometimes it’s more useful to tell you what’s NOT happening. For the past month or so, we’ve been hearing that the feds have warned city officials to back off on its medical cannabis cultivation ordinance. That’s probably because that’s exactly what the feds have been telling the media, and now Oakland’s city attorney has such cold feet he won’t even work on the thing. Big, bad, scary feds. Enter Desley Brooks, Oakland’s vice mayor and the latest on the City Council to [...]

Oakland city attorney refuses to work on cultivation law

 Cultivation, Marijuana Law, Medical marijuana
Feb 052011
 

Oakland City Attorney John Russo has delivered another blow to the city’s plans to tax and license large-scale cannabis farms: He’s withdrawn his legal advice and told the City Council to hire their own attorney. Russo’s letter, dated Thursday and addressed to the mayor and each council member, cited California rule 3-700 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct, which defines the rules under which an attorney may terminate a client. In the letter he advises the council to retain outside counsel for the duration of the deliberations on the medical cannabis cultivation issue, Cecily [...]

Chron editorial: Feds uproot Oakland cultivation plans

 Cultivation, Marijuana Law, Media, Opinion
Feb 042011
 

For months, Oakland has struggled with a perplexing dilemma: how can the city regulate marijuana sales and production — forbidden by federal law — while providing medical cannabis, as state voters decreed in a 1996 measure? Now the hammer has come down, observes this San Francisco Chronicle editorial. A plainly worded message from the local U.S. attorney, Melinda Haag, makes it clear that the city’s latest scheme won’t fly legally and leaves Oakland open to civil and criminal lawsuits. What part of “no” don’t you understand, Haag is suggesting. Oakland’s nonstop probing for a solution [...]

Like Oakland, Berkeley cultivation plans on hold

 Cultivation, Marijuana Law, Marijuana News
Jan 072011
 

It may be a very long time — or maybe not at all — for Berkeley’s voter-approved medical marijuana farms to start growing the green. That’s according to city officials and people in the industry who saw a letter from the Alameda County District Attorney warning Oakland officials they face prosecution for a similar plan. After receiving the Dec. 8 letter from District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, Oakland suspended its plan to allow and tax four medical marijuana farms of unlimited size, Doug Oakley reports in the Berkeley Voice. And to further dampen the spirits of [...]

After fed warnings, Oakland’s cannabis permits on hold

 Cultivation, Marijuana News
Dec 272010
 

OAKLAND — Former construction industry executive Jeff Wilcox has a $20 million bet riding on the future of marijuana commercialization in California. That is what his AgraMed Inc. venture has invested in a warehouse near the Oakland waterfront and a bid to open a “business park for the cannabis industry.” He hopes to lease the space to pot growers, bakeries, labs and processing facilities and to create hundreds of well-paying jobs, Peter Hecht reports in the Sacramento Bee. But Wilcox is in limbo after Oakland officials last week suspended a plan to issue four licenses [...]

Oakland puts cannabis cultivation on hold

 Cultivation, Marijuana News
Dec 222010
 

The Oakland City Council voted in closed session Tuesday to suspend implementation of its program to permit and tax industrial-sized medical marijuana cultivation businesses and increase the number of dispensaries until the new cultivation law can be amended to address concerns expressed by law enforcement. The city voted in July to license and regulate large cultivation operators who will grow and produce medical marijuana, Cecily Burt reports in the Oakland Tribune. The council also recently voted to increase the number of cannabis dispensaries from four to eight. After Tuesday’s vote, today’s deadline to apply for [...]

Oakland City Council plans closed session to hear legal concerns over cannabis cultivation

 Cultivation, Ordinances
Dec 122010
 

Oakland has been rushing for months to be the first city in California to license and tax large-scale commercial pot farms, but could a cryptic warning message from the city attorney put the brakes on the whole thing? Probably not. But a memo sent by City Attorney John Russo to council members last month will be a hot topic when the City Council meets in closed session Dec. 21. Spokesman Alex Katz said his boss would only say that law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C., and locally “have expressed concerns with the path Oakland is [...]

Columnists: Feds frown on Oakland pot permits

 Marijuana Law, Marijuana News
Nov 302010
 

Even as dozens of would-be pot planters showed up at Oakland City Hall last week to apply for permits to operate city-sanctioned marijuana farms, there were signs that the trailblazing effort to redefine the reefer industry might be going up in smoke. The four available permits, going for $211,000 apiece, may not be worth the paper they’re written on, Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross report in their San Francisco Chronicle column. For starters, City Attorney John Russo has declined to put his signature on the city ordinance that created the permits. The absence of Russo’s [...]

Oakland pot workers join Teamsters union

 Advocates, Business, Marijuana News, Medical marijuana
Sep 202010
 

OAKLAND — As organized labor faces declining membership, one of the country’s most storied unions is looking to a new growth industry: marijuana. The Teamsters added nearly 40 new members earlier this month by organizing the country’s first group of unionized marijuana growers. Such an arrangement is likely only possible in California, which has the nation’s loosest medical marijuana laws. But it’s still unclear how the Teamsters will safeguard the rights of members who do work that’s considered a federal crime, the Associated Press reports in the Sacramento Bee. “I didn’t have this planned out [...]

Pair sought for pot-related killing in Alameda County

 Law Enforcement, Marijuana News
Sep 032010
 

Alameda County sheriff’s investigators are asking for the public’s help in locating two men charged with murdering a man they apparently suspected of plotting to steal their marijuana. Mohammed Kahn, 47, and Manuel Trujillo, 62, know they are being sought in the slaying of Francisco “Frankie” Lopez, 27, of East Palo Alto and should be considered armed and dangerous, said sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Dudek. Lopez disappeared Feb. 26 after he and an older brother went to a five-bedroom home filled with marijuana plants in an unincorporated area near Hayward, Henry K. Lee of the San [...]

 Older Entries  Newer Entries